[patrickp]

Originally Posted by me283

Many years ago, dried manure was shipped as a kind of commodity. The problem was that if the sea became choppy or the waves were high, sea water would often get into the hold. This salt water, when mixed with the dried, packed manure, would cause gas creation (methane I think?), which was highly flammable. To combat this, the manure had to be stored higher up in the hold, to avoid it from mixing in the water that sloshed around on the floor. The bales were thuse marked "Ship High In Transit", which was abbreviated to...

Sorry, me283 - see next:

Originally Posted by Xaccers

Even if Ship High In Transit was actually stamped on boxes (which isn't likely) it is not the origin of the word **** which for most of it's existance had an "e" on the end anyway.

Quite right, Xaccers - the word actually comes from Old English 'scitan' to defecate (Chambers).

Originally Posted by david.ewles

The term the "Boogey Man will get you" comes from the Boogey people,who still inhabit an area of Indonesia. These people still act as pirates today and attack ships that pass. Thus the term spread "if you don't watch out the Boogey man will get you."

Another invention I'm afraid, David. The term is actually 'Bogey (or Bogy) Man,' not 'Boogey Man,' which seems to be an Americanism. I remember when I was a kid, the 'Boogey Man' spelling was never used in this country. It comes from an old word meaning 'goblin.'

Did you know that Columbus was wrong, very, very lucky and never discovered America?

The dispute in Columbus' time was not actually about whether the world was round (which was generally accepted then by educated people), but about its size. Two Greek philosophers had each calculated a different size for the world in classical times, and the dispute in the 15th century was over which one was right. Columbus believed that the smaller value was true, and hence that he could sail round the world 'the other way,' by going west, to reach India. You must remember that the eastern route to India was perilous then, involving sailing round the tip of South Africa.

So he tried it. He was wrong, however - the larger size was the correct value and if the American continents hadn't been there, he would have drowned in mid-ocean as a forgotten footnote in history. Lucky or what?

He landed in the West Indies, and that's why they have that name - he believed he had reached the easternmost islands of India. He finally died there, still convinced that he had discovered the western route to India, and never set foot on the American continent. So he really cannot be said to have discovered America - he never landed on it or even saw it, and believed he had reached India.